Hit me, baby, one more time! While might have been confusing to teenagers worldwide in its terminology, blackjack players knew exactly what Ms. Spears was talking about. She was trying to beat the dealer and get drawn a new card, of course! Blackjack speak can be difficult to decipher if you’re a novice, but you’ll be flying high once you start getting a handle on the game’s lexicon.
So, before playing , you may want to skim through this list of useful terminology. You’d be surprised how it could affect whether you bag a win!
Blackjack
Blackjack is not only the name of the game but the best possible outcome of the game. This is when a player or the dealer gets a hand of an Ace and a card to the value of 10 during the first round of play.
21
21 is the next-best hand you can get aside from Blackjack. This is when the cards in hand add up to 21 but are not Blackjack.
Split
In some games, when you are dealt two of the same cards as your first two, you can split them and play them as two separate hands.
Bust
Bust is when you get dealt a hand over 21, meaning you are automatically excluded from the game. Remember that an Ace can be counted as 11 or 1, so you may not be Bust when you think you are.
Stand
If you stand, tell the dealer you don’t wish to have them deal you another card. This is done when it’s your turn to play, and you think you have a good chance of beating the dealer from the numbers in your hand.
Hit
If you hit, then the dealer will deal you another card. This is a decision to make during play if you feel your hand is too short of beating the dealer, and it’s your turn on the table to play.
Face card
Any card with a face, be it a Jack, Queen, or King. If you are playing with a deck with novelty pictures, the card may not literally have a face on it.
Up card
This card is in the dealer’s hand and is shown picture-side up on the table. The dealer will only ever have one face-up card until the game plays out, at which time they will flip their face-down card over to play.
Burn card
This card is dealt the first in a game, face down, and discarded. This is to help ensure the players don’t know the first card dealt and thus can count cards for the game and cheat.
Buy-in
To play a round of blackjack, you must first buy in. Each table has a different buy-in amount. For example, one table may have a $1 buy-in, meaning it’s $1 to play, whereas others will have a $10 buy-in, so it’ll be $10 to play.
Bet behind
In games where it is permitted, you can bet on other players’ hands rather than your own. This is called a bet behind – literally behind another player. You can play a round in the game or simply be a spectator at the table.
First base
The first player at the table is directed to the dealer’s left. This is the person who will get dealt cards first in a game. This term comes .
Color up
To color up is to have the dealer exchange all your chips for the largest denominations. This is typically down when you have decided it’s time to finish playing and cash out. It takes its name from the fact that different chips have different colors, and you are trading them up.
Rebuy
This term is only used in tournament play. If you are playing a blackjack tournament and run out of chips, you will sometimes have the opportunity to buy into the game again for a fee and keep playing. This is never mandatory.
Live dealer
A live dealer is a game of blackjack played online where there is a real, live dealer, sitting somewhere in the world in a studio, being a dealer and streaming the game directly to your device. Sometimes live dealers can interact with their players, making for a more fun social game.